Feminism's stigma

During a class this summer on American popular culture, another student began her remarks with the following words: "I'm not trying to be all feminist or anything, but ..."

She then went on to make a very intelligent, well-thought-out statement on the video we had just watched about hegemony and the objectification of women in advertising. She found one ad for Smirnoff particularly offensive. It depicted a woman being turned into a bottle of vodka, complete with the logo and the word "imported" stamped on the model's exposed midriff.

As much as I wanted to pretend that I misheard her, I couldn't. Her comment came across loud and clear. She honestly felt the need to separate herself from the label "feminist" before arguing that women shouldn't be turned into mere accessories to the products being sold, if not the products themselves.

What made her comment so difficult for me to understand is that I identify with the recent and slightly flippant definition of feminism that it is "the radical notion that women are people." Obviously, the summer student was working from a slightly different definition out of an entirely different dictionary. It's apparent that what she identified as feminism was in all likelihood something more akin to the idea of "feminazism."

The term "feminazi" was first coined by Rush Limbaugh and used in his book, The Way Things Ought to Be, a title that invokes probably the most frightening example of a future dystopia I can imagine. (With, perhaps, the exception of Margaret Atwood's A Handmaid's Tale.) Initially, Limbaugh used feminazism to describe what he considered to be overzealous pro-choice activists. But like most of the other extremely offensive things Limbaugh is on record as having said, the phrase has since taken on a life of its own.

And of course it makes me cringe. While it's true that nobody really likes to be compared to the Nazis, the term also brings back all of the old feminist stereotypes. No matter how far we might have come over the years, we're still evil, unrealistic, militant man-haters in the popular consciousness. Apparently, these misconceptions are so ingrained that the phrase "feminazi" can be implied without ever being said. It seems almost like a topic that should've been on my class' course syllabus.

Last night, author Naomi Wolf spoke at Zellerbach Theatre as part of Penn Women's Week. In the early 1990s her books, The Beauty Myth and Fire with Fire, helped bring about a new generation of feminism and feminist thinking. This latest wave focused on female equality instead of superiority and encouraged "power feminism" as opposed to "victim feminism."

In 1995, Hillary Clinton followed suit and gave a speech entitled, "Women's Rights Are Human Rights," at the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women. Clinton's words still resonate today, especially considering that a decade later, there is still much work to be done. A fifth conference has yet to be scheduled.

Additionally, the shift in feminism's focus continues within national organizations. This coming April, the Feminist Majority Foundation is planning to host a "National Collegiate Global Women's and Human Rights" conference in Washington. Students from around the country will work together to build a national constituency to push for things like the ratification of international human rights laws.

Penn is planning a summit on global issues in women's health for later in April. Professors from the University's various schools will join world leaders to discuss issues ranging from women's rights to health care and domestic violence.

The tactic of emphasizing human rights seems to be a promising one. With the exception of our new attorney general, few people in this country have qualms against basic human rights, and wider acceptance is almost guaranteed. Moreover, there is hope that with this new brand of feminism, many of the age-old arguments against the women's movement will eventually fall away.

But they have not died yet. The student whose comments I referenced earlier is certainly not alone in her feelings. And she is definitely not the only women at Penn who freely voices feminist sensibility and fully believes in women's rights but yet retains reservations about identifying herself as a feminist. It's regrettable that women at Penn who are so strong and unafraid in so many other ways should fear something like the word "feminist."

Amara Rockar is a sophomore political science major from St. Louis. Out of Range appears on Fridays.

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